Prior to the public release of the existence of the Presidential "Kill List", Secret units comprised of Military, Ex-Military, Intelligence and Ex-Intelligence officers operated under the control of a secret organization within the Federal Government. These units are referred to in the media as "Death Squads"

A death squad is an armed group that conducts extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances of persons for the purposes of political repression, genocide, or revolutionary terror. These killings are often conducted in ways meant to ensure the secrecy of the killers' identities. Death squads are often, but not exclusively, associated with police states, one party states, or military dictatorships. It is not unheard of, however, for democratic governments to form death squads.

Death squads may have the support of domestic or foreign governments (see state terrorism). They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary groups, or government soldiers and policemen. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces of Privatized Security companies or organized crime.

The following is the story of one such Death Squad Leader subsequently finding himself in prison on the charge of Treason.

Gene "Chip" Tatum joined the Air Force Special Force as a forward air controller in the early 70's, at age 19. He went to US Army Special Forces school and was assigned to South-East Asia as Airman First Class (A1C) in December 1970, he was assigned as a radio operator on a Forward Air Control (FAC) aircraft attached to Task Force Alpha (secretly under operational control of the CIA, but on paper it looked like it was under the 56th Special Operations Wing, and under the major command, US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), under the Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense.

56th Special Operations Wing and Task Force Alpha were operating out of Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base Phnom Pehn, Thailand. As to how much of a secret this was I don't know, but it appears the US did whatever we could to keep our operations there secret. I have noted more about 56th Special Operations Wing at the end of this article.

Shortly after being assigned to Thailand, Airman Chip Tatum, assigned to a task force code-named, Team Red Rock. The team was composed of Airman Tatum, eight US Army Green Berets, three US Navy SEALs and two CIA paramilitary officer or (aka direct action) or contract agents/soldiers (a total of 14 US men) that was under operational control directly from the White House.

A plan had been drawn up by Siagon (Theodore "Ted" Shackley) and ordered by President Nixon, Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig, operational direction by Ted Shackley and Bill Colby, Team Red Rock was to enter Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, and secretly attack the Pochentong airport, military and civil installations, and destroy all of the Cambodian air force parked there, or as many as possible. The plan called for the team to parachute into the outskirts of Phnom Penh. They were tasked to take with them two formerly captured, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) POWs wearing their NVA uniforms, but were unarmed and alive. The plan was to murder the POWs and their bodies left to be discovered by Cambodian forces. The purpose of this was to makes the Cambodian leaders come to the false conclusion that the North Vietnamese were responsible for the attack. This kind of operation is called a "False Flag" operation. This whole plan including the murders was approved and ordered by President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, General Alexander Haig.

According to Tatum, he and the rest of his team were dressed in North Vietnamese uniforms as were the NVA POWs, This is a violation of the Geneva and Hague convention (a war crime) and the team could be shot as spies if were captured.

It was also part of the secret mission, and ordered by Pres. Nixon, Kissinger, and/or Haig, that Team Red Rock was not to return from this mission alive. A detachment of Montagnard tribesmen working for the CIA, was assigned to kill the team and dispose of the bodies to make sure no word about this mission ever leaked out.

Chip Tatum is not very forth coming in his video interview with Ted Gunderson, a former FBI Chief of Station, for Los Angeles. It will help you in understanding what I am telling you here, if you watch the following video tape after reading this.

In video tape Tatum only stated that in 1971 he was many times on classified mission in Cambodia. Also he did not have a good understanding of why Nixon wanted this false flag mission done. In face, Tatum may have been lied to as to the real purpose of his mission and had never got around to doing a Google search about the history of his mission. By looking at the open source history of the civil war in Cambodia, I was able to learn the date of Team Red Rocks attack and destruction of the pro-US Cambodian Air Forces' airplanes. General Lon Nol was at this time the leader of Cambodia.

A little background of events in Cambodia at the time:

On March 18, 1970 - Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia is deposed by General Lon Nol in a bloodless coup. The Cambodian National Assembly passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in Sihanouk and replaced him as chief of state. However, General Lon Nol had his military forces Royal Khmer Armed Forces or in French, the Les Forces Armées Royales Khmères (FARK), take over the airport and radio station and standing by to fight to over-throw Sihanouk. Sihanouk was in France for medical treatment at the time. After the coup, he aligns with Cambodian Communists, known as the Khmer Rouge, in an effort to oust Lon Nol's regime. The Lon Nol government pardoned some 500 political prisoners, the majority of whom were Khmer Serei.

The Royal Khmer Armed Forces "Forces Armées Royales Khmeres" (FARK), was established on 9 November 1953 under a Franco-Khmer convention. This contributed to the termination of the French colony and protectorate, and Cambodia obtained its own authentic military organization. The French Army advisors and trainers remained in Cambodia until 1971.

Now I learned that on the night of 21 January 1971, open source history noted that "North Vietnamese attacked Pochentong" airfield, Phnom Penh Cambodia, ."fought and killed the security guards of the Cambodian Army (FARK) before saturating most of the installations on the airfield with heavy fire from automatic weapons and multiple rocket launchers. A group of Vietnamese climbed even to the roof of the commercial terminal at Pochentong and started firing at the ammunition depot  full of napalm bombs. Before anybody could react the Vietnamese disappeared back into the jungle."

"When the smoke cleared on the following morning, the Cambodians could count their casualties: 39 officers and other ranks were killed and 170 injured. Fortunately no FARK pilots were killed: the pilot's quarters were not hit by the North Vietnamese mainly targeted the aircraft on apron. However, most of the FARK aircraft were destroyed, including all MiG-17s and UH-1Hs, as well as three O-1s of the SVAF. The Pochentong airfield remained closed for almost a week: the tarmac, ammunition depots and the runway had all had to be repaired and new equipment brought in from the USA. Only days earlier the Congress in Washington decided to supply equipment worth $175 million, but now the Americans were forced to further increase their deliveries in order to completely rebuilt the FARK air force.. Especially the White House felt compelled to do something: it could not send any troops officially to Cambodia, but it could organize a Military Equipment Delivery Team  Cambodia (MEDTC), which was officially to control the flow of supplies to Phnom Pehn, but actually to become deeply involved in training of the Cambodian military."

Photographs of the destroyed aircraft and the Pochentong airfield in can be seen at the:

Now I think the Red Rock Team real mission was to convince Congress to authorized more money to finance new and improved aircraft in support of the pro-US and anti-commie, Lon Nol's regime. is really why President Nixon order this false flag mission.

Here is Tatum's account of what happened. "So Team Red Rock goes in and just blows up the airport. We jumped in with North Vietnamese sappers, and we left their bodies there in North Vietnamese uniforms. We utilized particular airburst rounds with the aviation side, so that there wasn't a lot of damage, you know, to the tarmac itself. We had slap-pack explosives that blew up the planes. We made sure that the planes were parked close enough so that one explosion could take out three or four units, so it looked like the damage was terrible.

We had aircraft carriers sitting off the coast, waiting to replace the aircraft that were blown up on the ground. So you (the US) moved in the next day to save him (Gen. Lon Nol) from The North Vietnamese that just attacked his country. The "Time" magazine and "Newsweek" magazine articles both said (that) Washington touted it as one of the greatest offensives the North Vietnamese have ever masterminded, a mastermind offensive."

President Nixon had ordered an invasion of Cambodia in May of 1970 against North Vietnamese safe havens and supply depots. Lon Nol in the meantime, had called up military reserves, had requested UN intervention, and, while reiterating Cambodia's position of neutrality, had issued a call for international assistance.

Chip Tatum's account of history reasons for the false flag attack on January 21, 1971, is as follows: " Lon Nol, the premier of Cambodia, was a fence-sitter. He was - you know, China was right next door, and China was the catalyst for all this. He was rocking between China and the United States, If the North Vietnamese came into his country, he'd put a Nixon decided that what we needed to do - and this was part of( Assistant Secretary of State's assistant) Haig's plan battalion over there, just to show force, but no real battle-plans, no real alliance anywhere. It was hoped that such an act would stiffen Lon Nol's backbone. A furious Lon Nol would assume North Vietnam was to blame. With nowhere else to turn, (as a) US puppet (he) would urgently seek US hardware to strengthen his forces and continue the battle."

Here is some more historic background on Cambodia:

Under Sihanouk Cambodia had filed a complaint in the UN Security Council against the United States and South Vietnam for their "repeated acts of aggression against Cambodia." Relations were formally terminated May 3, 1965. In 1966 Sihanouk secretly granted access to a Cambodian the deep-water port to the North Vietnamese. This port became a main entry point for North Vietnamese military supplies from China and from the Soviet Union. Armaments were then transported to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sanctuaries on the border with South Vietnam, over a highway.. This effective supply route enabled the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong to stockpile substantial amounts of armaments and equipment for the 1968 Tet Offensive against the Saigon government.

Tatum continues to describe the secret Red Rock mission. His Special Forces team leaders got suspicious of the Montagnard set up to help them get back to our home in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand where he was based out of. The Montagnards they met had in fact been ordered by the CIA to kill the whole Team Red Rock. The team managed to kill the Montagnards, but several team members had been killed at this point.

Using their knowledge of "escape and evasion" tactics, the team decided to trek to the South Vietnamese border and back to safety with US forces. Only eight of them remained. Soon the whole team was captured by North Vietnamese Army.

Tatum says, "We didn't know that they had orders to kill us? We were ultimately captured (by the North Vietnamese). We were tortured. Many of us were killed. I was severely beaten and severely tortured. W e were liberated by a routine patrol of U.S. Marines. (They) got in a fire-fight with North Vietnamese (guards) and (they) didn't know we were in the encampment, (Team Red Rock was wearing no clothing) - and three of us were running out of the camp. One of them received a gut-shot and died (from friendly fire). The other two of us received severe head-wounds, and we were both in comas with brain-trauma (and evacuated to an American hospital in the Philippines). I have discussed below in this article, Airman Tatum's the 92-day captivity as a prisoner of war and the torture of him and the other members of the team.

Tatum claims that while he was in the Philippines, he was visited by William Colby, who was the CIA station chief in Vietnam and was told by him that Pres. Nixon had order the death of all of Team Red Rock. At this time Colby recruited Airman Tatum into the CIA.

Tatum said he was later tasked to work as part of the CIA's operation Phoenix in Vietnam. He utilized a lot of military personnel, who were special-ops guys, Special Forces, primarily NCO’s. He says a lot of the information the Phoenix people got was bogus, and assassinations were performed on that bogus information, so a lot of innocent civilians were killed.

In 1974 Tatum was attached to Air America as a communications specialist near the end of Vietnam, He jumped in a lot of zones, trying to move downed aircraft, downed Air America pilots, downed military pilots who were where we weren't, into safe zones to have them picked up. Air America started losing a lot of aircraft for some unknown reason. Tatum hinted that he suspects that the CIA was killing off its own Air American pilots in airplane crashes, just as they had tried to kill off his Red Rock Team. It should be noted here that Air American pilots were flying opium out of Laos to pay for their covert war there. It is possible some of the Air American pilots had ethical views about being part of such a CIA program.

Tatum says a CIA person was in charge of a program during the Vietnam War to go in behind the enemy lines and assassinate the civilian North Vietnamese and Chinese leaders, who were running things and to get rid of the commanders, and the communication.

Tatum states that his next assignment with the CIA was that he was sent to the US's Aviano Air Base in Italy, and working out of there, he would infiltrate Yugoslavia and the Communist Bloc countries.

We had received information early that there was a possibility of POW's/MIA's who were moved through Burma into this - into - sent to Communist Bloc countries to be held there, so we started looking, and I would report - every Monday, I would have to go back to Aviano Air Base, to the command-and-control center, where we had a secure line, and call in to Washington Switch, and speak with the director, and report our findings. Tatum found two US POW's/MIA's from Vietnam war that had been sent from Vietnam over into the Soviet Bloc countries, is that what you're saying?

One was named Hill or Hull. Tatum thinks was a pilot, a captain or a lieutenant. Tatum’s team actually found them in Bulgaria.

Tatum sent a letter about this to Red McDaniel, head of the American Defense Institute from jail. McDaniel says the POW's/MIA is a cover-up.

Within six weeks after Tatum found those two American POWs, he was shipped back to the U.S. and to Colorado. This was when Bush Sr. was the director of the CIA.

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Pegasus was an organization within the CIA that spied on the spies working for the CIA and tests them to see if they were honest and not easily recruited or go public about illegal CIA drug operations, for example, drug trafficking. It has been establish right after World War II, a group within the CIA. This was a CIA operation under the direct operational control of the National Security Council. In other words, this was an illegal government Department within our government. Congress has to approval and has oversight over the Departments under the President because Congress funds all of our government.

The president wanted someone that he could trust, so he formed his own small group of operatives which he called "Pegasus." These were the people who worked and communicated their information directly to the president of the United States. Pegasus remained a part of the CIA until just after the Kennedy assassination, Tatum alleges. After that, it became a shadow CIA with other nations like Israel, UK and other foreign government foreign intelligence services as part of it, during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

The chain of command under the President for operation Pegasus was the National Security Council(NSC), the Special Situation Group and the Terrorist Incident Working Group and then the Operational Sub-Groups (OSG). These three sub-groups were the case officers or special operations military soldiers of Pegasus and not answerable to Congress. One OSG handled moving arms secretly and the anti-drug task force, the OSG /counter terror group was made up of Delta Force, and Special Operations group, Navy Seals), and one OSG handled neutralizations  to include assassinations. Each OSG unit had a commander in charge.

Tatum claims that is Maggie Thatcher would have said, "I want this done, and I want it done now, and even though she's not an active politician, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be done."

"Pegasus" is a code-name given by CIA's William Colby in 1971 member of the ultra-secret international G-7-run Pegasus hit-team National Security Council, NSA , you're talking about blackmail.

Tatum said, "Depending on the mission and the goals of the mission, you may have a whole team assigned to you, you may have one person, you may have people coming in and out of your life, you know, not necessarily full-time, just, you know, here, let's spend a week with this guy and go after him. There are so many out there that we have to align."

Tatum says that he thinks Initially Pegasus was formed as a group to keep an eye on the intelligence community. Then it evolved into gathering information on politicians on certain committees, so that, if the needs be, there was enough information there to approach those people on behalf of the president, and twist their arms.

During 1980 Tatum was reactivated in the CIA, but this time into the US Army. He was sent to the US Army Flight School for rotary- wing training at Fort Rucker. From there he was assigned to the 160th Aviation Battalion/Special Forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Because of his training in the Air Force as a forward air traffic controller and the weakness of radars, what they can and cannot see. He knew how to fly into and out of the US and other countries without being detected. He had trained about the EC3A advanced airborne command post and AWACS program, so that he understood what the radars were looking at and what the FAA and US air defense controllers could and could not see.

As a pilot, Tatum knew what those areas are, and he would be able to maneuver your way up into the various states, and drop major drops without being detected. One could buy a little Cobra radar-detector and put it in your aircraft, and you'll know whether you're being tracked by radar or not. You mask yourself behind some hills or something, and you drop out of that 5,000-foot range, get down into below 500 or less, and no one will catch you.

Mexico is one of the large transshipment points, as is now coming across the northern border of the United States. Tatum was able to fly even single-engine aircraft and take off, specially equipped single-engine aircraft, take off in Colombia, fly to the Bahamas, rest overnight, wait for a weather-window, go up into Nova Scotia, come across to the Weyburn (sp?) area of Saskatchewan, and then come down into Montana, North Dakota. This was one of his major routes to fly drugs into the US. Tatum alleges that some people that were on Customs staff that Tatum investigated were running certain (radar) sites around the Caribbean, and were shutting their radars down and letting aircraft come through.

I have a source who was told that Coast Guard in North Carolina would routinely not operating their surveillance aircraft on curtain days, allegedly because they didn't have enough money aircraft fuel.

In 1981, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 3 that places the intelligence community, and all intelligence assets under the Vice President Bush.

During 1983, former CIA director William Colby established contact again, advising Tatum he would shortly be contacted by "a man called North", Lt Col. Oliver North. Tatum says that North's "Enterprise" not only set up the cocaine factories and "ran" the Colombian cartels, but was also responsible for masterminding the massive shipments of narcotics into the US. Significantly, he is not alone in making these accusations. A number of those involved in Col. North's operations have subsequently come forward and spilled the beans. Almost all of these "whistleblowers" have been hounded and imprisoned. Some have died, whilst others have fled. The whole Contra thing, Tatum states, was also being used by an extremely covert group called Pegasus.

In addition to taking his orders from Oliver North and Felix Rodríguez, Tatum was tasked to work directly for Amiram Nir, a former Mossad agent and advisor to Vice President Bush. Aviation support for Pegasus missions operated out of Ilopango Air Base, Honduras (home of the CIA proprietary airline Corporate Air Services) plus numerous Contra camps located in the jungles and mountains along the Honduras-Nicaragua border.Posing as a US Army medavac helicopter Tatum routinely flew/ transported of large white coolers noted as medical supplies in and out of the Contra camps, but they really contained cocaine.

From 1983-84 when Tatum was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, he regularly he would fly these white coolers, marked as "Medical Supplies", to Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. On two occasions he carried similar coolers to Mena Airport, Arkansas. Deliveries of medical coolers to Little Rock AFB were picked up by Dr Dan Lasater - a close confidant of the then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.

On the one hand Tatum was flying classified active-duty missions for the US Army; on the other, he was flying CIA missions arranged through Mil. Group A (CIA), located at the embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; and thirdly, he was flying Pegasus missions under the control of William Colby, Oliver North and George Bush following his recruitment into Pegasus by Colby in 1986.

Tatum claims the US flew over four tons of cocaine out of Honduras in the middle 1980s. He states that Major Rodriguez, who was Felix Rodriguez, was one of his bosses or handlers in Honduras. In 1985, Tatum was assigned (sheep-dipped ) into a unit at Fort Steward, GA, as an undercover Army officer flying a medical evacuation helicopter. One of the medics assigned to his helicopter was a Specialist MacDonald (sp?). There was a company called Corporate Air Services flying into Honduras was well.

Tatum also says he could call to "Washington Switch" from Pomerola Air Base, and he talked directly with another of his handlers, Oliver North. Tatum's missions were to fly into Contra camps and he learned that the Contras were indeed manufacturing the cocaine themselves, under the direction of a Colombia Ramon. Ramon was later assassinated just prior to the Noriega trial. He says that if someone was felt to be a problem, he would be "Arkancided" (meaning made it look like a suicide as had occurred in the death associated drug trafficking operation run out of Mena, AR) , otherwise known as "suicided " or they die in a plane crash.

Tatum said, Ollie North set these five camps up with cocaine kitchens producing 500 kilos per week. The 159th Aviation Battalion out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, super-chinooks (sp?) were flying in the fuel-pods and equipment, dropping them in, dropping bladders of acetone to manufacture the coca leaves into cocaine Tatum says drugs went to either Ilapongo(sp?) Air Base in El Salvador, or they went up to Panama. Also El Ocatal (sp?) to a meeting of this cartel.

Several of the people that Tatum flew to this meeting in El Ocatal were General Noriega, Mike Harari, who was a retired Mossad agent and was a member of a rich Jewish Panama family, Felix Rodriguez, Joe Fernandez, who was the CIA station-chief in Costa Rica, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez(sp?), who was the Honduran Army ex-chief of staff, and a guy named William Barr, who represented the assets of this enterprise. Barr became the Attorney General under President George Bush Sr., and replacing AG Thornburgh.

Tatum claims he had dinner with Vice Pres. Bush Sr's national security director, Don Gregg and Gregg discussed drugs with Tatum. He said, Gregg gave him large briefcase of money to be taken to a meeting that was going to be held in Ocatal (sp?), Costa Rica.

At this meeting there was in attendance, William Barr, Gen. Noriega, Amiram Nir and Mike Harari both Mossad, Joe Fernandez, Felix Rodriguez, and Gen. Alvarez (sp?), ex-chief of staff of the Honduran army.

On April 12, 1985, VP George Bush was in Honduras and he met with the president of Colombia and the president of Honduras. This was at the heights of everything going on in the Iran-Contra situation,

Tatum would soon get to meet CIA pilot and DEA confidential informant, Barry Seal and they become close friends. Seal openly boasted he had information that implicated high-level government officials, including then-Vice President Bush. Seal gave Tatum a list of the following named people in the Enterprise's narcotics-trafficking business.

1. William Casey, former Director Central Intelligence

2. Clair Elroy George, Head of CIA's Central American Task Force

3. Vice President George Bush, Henry Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates; former US Secretary of State; former National Security Adviser

4. General Alexander Haig, former Secretary of State

5. Donald Gregg, former National Security Adviser to VP Bush, Ambassador to Korea and alleged joint "Controller"/CIA case officer of Panama's Manuel Noriega, along with William Casey

Duane "Dewey" Clarradge, CIA officer

Joseph Fernandez, CIA Costa Rica Station Chief

Lt Col. Oliver North, National Security Council aide

John Singlaub, CIA covert operator

William Colby, Director Central Intelligence, 1973-76)

Richard V. Secord, (former General CIA black operative)

William Weld, head of Criminal Division, US Department of Justice; ( instrumental in "blocking" Senate investigations into narcotics, according to testimony of former Senate special investigator, Jack Blum)

Felix Rodríguez, CIA officer with close connection to VP Bush

LTG Leonard H. Perroots, USAF, Defense Intelligence Agency, 1985  1988. After retiring in 1992, Perroots was the president of a private military company called Group Vector

Of those listed above, the following named people were also officers of the Nugan Hand Bank that has been linked to CIA drug trafficking in South Vietnam and laundering of the drug profits.

1. Major General John Singlaub ran covert operations throughout Asia. In December 1966 he was assigned to activate the 56th Air Commando Wing at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base,Thailand. This is the unit Tatum was assigned to during as part of Operation Red Rock. Singlaub also was the founder in 1981 of the United States Council for World Freedom, the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL).

2. Major General Richard Secord

3. William Colby

During l986, Tatum had left Honduras and set up a money-laundering business in Watertown, NY, close to the home base of the Army's 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. The location was chosen because of access to Fort Drum's telephone lines for secure communications. Tatum was assigned a Cherokee-140 fixed-wing aircraft, used to ship personnel and supplies across the Canadian border under radar cover. His tenure with these companies lasted from 1986 through to 1990. This was a pure Pegasus operation.

It was at Watertown that Tatum was provided with a civilian cover in the form of three construction companies: American National Home Builders, American Constructors and American Homes. Funding was provided by Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican politician and well known as the CIA's "black money" man.

The dirty money was filtered via construction loans with permanent "takeouts" "arranged by banks and mortgage- lenders". These, in turn, were later sold to Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's - negotiable US Federal Mortgage Securities that are traded globally on a daily basis. Each laundry "cycle" lasted from six months to a year. The result was dirty money transformed into good, clean, US currency.

Hyde provided a US$250,000 line of credit with Key Bank, Watertown. Although Tatum was listed as the president in all three companies, in reality all were under the control of Ben Whittaker, a lawyer from Rochester, New York. Whittaker, Tatum says, is closely associated with Tony Wilson of the Wilson family who owned Xerox Corporation. They are extremely wealthy and "friends of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers". In addition, he was also closely associated with South Eastern US Investment Group (SEUS) - an investment bank in Savannah, Georgia - from 1985 through to 1989. Another proprietary he was involved with was Irving Place Development, a service organization of Irving Bank and Trust Company. Cocaine proceeds were laundered through these companies by an ingenious use of construction loans and mortgages bundled and sold to Fannie May and Freddie Mac.